Loss
by Lady Fellshot
Summary: A speculation on Seldarine reductions. 4e Realms-ish


Disclaimer: Actually... WotC can have a socratic gesture of contempt instead of a disclaimer. * Walks around in circles singing*

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He felt the tugging at the core of his being as if someone had reached through to his spine and begun to pull at it. A sharp sensation at first before it steadied and became constant. _What in the multiverse... _He examined the feeling and experimentally willed a small spell into creation. Uncharacteristically, particularly for him, it flickered, guttered and died.

He took an internal inventory once more an examined the pulling sensation closely. "Sehanine..."

"Here, milord," her soft wispy voice and sage tinted breath tickled his ear. "Something has gone very wrong in the natural fabric of things."

"Our children are bound to that fabric," He took a deep breath. "We need to effect repairs, lest they unravel with it."

"My sisters and I stand ready," Sehanine's dream soaked whispers did not frequently convey a sense of steely purpose, yet she did so now. He looked and saw Aerdrie, all agitated wings and nimble fluttering, and Hanali, his court's heartwarden, hurrying towards him.

He began the spells to reweave the unraveling. Sehanine, Aerdrie and Hanali joined in as smoothly as musicians in a quartet. A thought not his own flitted through his mind. Sehanine. _We must cut the line before it unravels further. Our children protect themselves by the warp and weft of the Weave._

_Bind it off then, _He thought back grimly._ Sever the ties to the rest and let them fall away. Our children will require slack in the threads... We want them to grow and prosper in all things._

Pulling hard against the unraveling, they reeled in the fraying line. A few more heaves gained them more threads of the Weave to work with. Aerdrie, Sehanine and Hanali mentally dug in and braced against the snapback as he severed the line as far off as he could.

A flicker across the mental connection urged him to work faster. Sehanine and her sisters strained, tired and foundered as the three of them struggled to effect repairs and bind of the little portion of the greater Weave. He began to feel the strain himself and for the first time in several millenea, he wondered if he might have gotten in farther than he could extract himself.

A fresh mind joined the quartet and the group's energy surged with renewal. Mindful that their time dwindled, he swiftly put the energy back into their smaller Weaving and shored up as many weak points as he could find. Exhausted, he ended the group spell casting and surveyed the cost with dismay.

Most unexpectedly, Rillifane lay curled up into a ball, his skin hardening and gaining a smooth texture not unlike an acorn. Aerdrie and Hanali had fallen into an insensible pile and only the minutest of flickers let him know that they still lived. Sehanine lay limp against him with eyes closed. She breathed, "My sisters... so tired... Corellon... tired... couldn't..."

"Shh," He soothed and carried her gently to her fallen kin. "Rest well, beloved, and return to me when you and yours are whole and strong once more."

With a light kiss on Sehanine's forehead, Corellon set her down next to Aerdrie and Hanali. As soon as she came into contact with her sisters they merged and became one being, tall, lithe and ginger. He watched as the last wisps of Sehanine's straight moonsilver hair fade into Angharradh's wildly curly mane of red. The sisters merged into the lady of the Triune, still unconscious. He felt himself begin to shift a little in sympathy, swinging closer towards androgyny as he kept his vigil.

A message came flitting in on wind, _Milord, you have visitors_.

After checking both Rillifane and Angharradh, he reluctantly left them slumbering in the little wooded glen. He walked towards the airy buildings where he usually entertained the rare formal audience. Labelas, the historian of his court, met him halfway there.

"We have representatives from both Celestia and the Fugue and Selûne herself has come to Arvandor," Labelas informed him uneasily. "I would suppose that they are checking allies after the disturbance in the Weave..."

"The Weave has unraveled," Corellon interjected smoothly.

"Our charges are still thriving," The historian frowned. "The Weave could not have collapsed entirely..."

"Let me rephrase, for the general magic user, the Weave has unraveled." Corellon could see the audience hall coming into view.

Labelas nodded in acquiescence. Together they greeted the messengers and the visiting deity. The messengers wove a tale of treachery that ended with the death of Mystra in Dweomerheart by Cyric's hand. Corellon found himself becoming distracted halfway through the messengers' recitation. _Angharradh's waking up... and in such fractured despair..._ He dismissed the messengers to their other assignments when they finished and wished he could devote his full attention to Angharradh.

When the messengers left, Selûne asked, "Any casualties here? There has been some scattered effects here and there and I was expecting to see Sehanine..."

"She is currently indisposed,"He said smoothly. "I take it some of our fellows were not so fortunate?"

"Yondalla was struck down trying to mitigate the Weave collapsing," The moon goddess said sadly. "Chauntea is shepherding the halflings for the time being."

_This bodes ill._ "I will ask should we need similar aid," Corellon assured her. "In the meantime, I'm sure you have other realms to visit and I must care for my people and my court."

He kept up the pretense of quiet concern until he felt Selûne depart from Arvandor. As soon as she left, he hurried back to the little clearing. Rillifane still resembled a wooden statue more than anything else. Angharradh lay curled up sobbing more or less where he had left her. Deeply concerned, Corellon sat next to her and gently rocked her into a sitting position. "We tried to save it, but we couldn't..." she cried and buried her face in his chest.

He held her close and soothed, "But we did. Our children survived the reweaving."

Angharradh shook her head and continued to cry. "Sehanine was more than just Sehanine."

For a moment Corellon felt adrift. A storm of conflicting emotions swept through him before finally settling to a dull, pervasive, gloomy sadness. The glade filled with cold damp mist as he rocked Angharradh. She continued to cry softly, "She doesn't want to return, the loss..."

"...Is too new." He felt his eyes mist over. "May the three support and heal each other until such time as they feel they can rejoin me."

The Lady of the Triune nodded and continued to cry into Corellon's chest. He shut his eyes and let his tears join hers in mourning for the child that would never be.

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Author's note: Among the many unsavory things that 4e did was randomly prune and shift the pantheons in the name of "simplification" but resulting in "lack of belief suspension," at least for this watcher. I am of the opinion that they could have done many of the things that they did if they had bothered to do something reasonable and interesting with a bunch of potential plot hooks and a nod to the Realms that were. Maybe I managed to help in my own small way. In any case, Thank you for your attention, gentle reader.


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